Let me start by apologising for my recent absenteeism. I’ve been navigating through some [more] major life changes, but rest assured my personal journal (the one I don’t broadcast on the Internet) is bursting at the seams.

At any rate, I’m here now and, as usual, I’ve got something to say.

For years, I’ve been fascinated by positive psychology. Those who know me might think this a bit odd, and for good reason: up until recently, I proudly sported a Pessimist badge on my sleeve. What business does someone who sees the glass as half empty have poking her nose around something so gosh darn positive?!

One of my goals for this year was to take a long, hard look at my communications company, Paper Plane Communications, and make some important decisions about direction, appearance, and how to make big magic happen.

As with most major projects, energy, momentum, and motivation tend to come in bursts. Big at first, and then incrementally smaller thereafter–particularly if you let a pretty little thing called life get in the way. And so, for the past few months I’ve been a communications consultant without a website. Sacrilege, I know.

The reason behind my business facelift was simple: as I looked around at the virtual ecosystem I’d created, I realised that while things weren’t broken–in fact, they’d been ticking along quite nicely–they were on the verge of becoming stale. The solution? Pivot.

Originally, I planned to title this post “Ten Seconds to Happy,” but later on I make reference to one Ms. Kimmy Schmidt, and the jarring visual of a salty stick of meat draped in crinoline was too good to pass up. (Titus, you legend.) And besides, I’ve been hard at work channeling strength and self-love, so a metaphor for tough and beautiful seemed apropos.

So here’s the thing: happiness is only ten seconds away. Less, even. This might sound farfetched, but neuroscience and Netflix suggest otherwise.